Scheme attracts almost 50 doctors from outside the EU to work in rural surgeries

Almost 50 doctors have participated in the first phase of a scheme to reverse the “medical brain drain” by bringing experienced medical staff from outside the EU to rural general practices in Ireland.

A first group of more than 20 completed a three-day residential induction organised by the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) in Portlaoise in March. They are working alongside established GPs in towns including Abbeyleix, Wexford and Castlebar, while a second group is completing the first phase of a structured familiarisation programme this week.

Dr Velma Harkins, one of the programme leads on the scheme, is confident that about 100 doctors will have been enrolled by the end of this year. “The applications keep rolling in,” she said.

The ICGP scheme, which is supported by the HSE and the Irish Medical Organisation, is part of a wider attempt to address an estimated shortfall of 2,000 GPs in Ireland.

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A large proportion of existing GPs are approaching retirement age, and attracting younger doctors to replace them is an ongoing challenge, particularly in rural areas where those running smaller practices often struggle to find the cover required to allow them care for family members, take time off or go on holidays.

It had been anticipated that the scheme would attract significant interest from South African doctors but the 20 doctors gathered in Portlaoise on Thursday included GPs from several other countries including Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[ Over 100 foreign doctors sought for rural GP practices in bid to ease shortage ]

Under the terms of the programme they will all work under the supervision of a mentor GP in Ireland for the next two years as they prepare to take the exams that will allow them to become fully qualified to practise in the Irish system.

“A priority for us is to try to identify areas where there’s need, where doctors are really struggling and many of our colleagues are really, really struggling to recruit,” said Dr Harkins.

“So the idea has been to match doctors with applicants. There is no point in sending anyone anywhere they want to go but the more we can facilitate the rural areas the better. And so far that’s proving very successful.

“We are seeing practices that might have closed over time being able instead to expand and take on new patients.”

One of those practices is in Abbeyleix where Dr Bianca Skinner and her husband, Greg, both from South Africa, have joined Dr John Madden, a long-established GP in the town who has said the new arrivals have hugely boosted the practice, particularly its female patients.

“It’s been transformational, we‘re extremely fortunate to get them,” said Dr Madden who runs a teaching practice that previously involved two GPs and a registrar, a doctor in the final stages of their training.

With about 1,400 patients on his public list and private patients on top of that, Dr Madden spoke of the challenge he had experienced taking time off given the contractual obligation he is under to provide cover. His daughter is getting married next month, and until the doctors recruited under the non-EU scheme arrived in February, he wasn’t completely sure how he was going to handle the challenge of being away for the few days.

“I don’t think there’d be too much concern out there over how much time off a rural GP gets to take,” he said, “but the 24/7 nature of it is making it difficult to recruit younger doctors into rural practices and that is obviously a concern for a great many people.

“What we are seeing is doctors retiring and their practices being absorbed into bigger ones in the larger towns and that means many more people having to travel to see a GP and lacking, perhaps, the connection that they have at the moment.”

Dr Bianca Skinner met her husband while they were both studying medicine in Johannesburg after which they both worked for a number of years in rural areas of South Africa, initially as part of a government scheme that requires newly qualified doctors to work for the state for a period. They then stayed out of “passion” and to help impoverished communities.

The couple, who have three young children, decided to move to Ireland after Greg was held up at gunpoint twice. Five years on, their eldest child, now 10, says if they move again from their current home in Kilkenny, he will still have to be driven to his current hurling club several times a week.

The scheme’s two-year time allows experienced GPs like them to adapt to culture and practicalities of the Irish system and they both, she says, felt the benefits.

“It’s very similar, though. Obviously, the referral systems are a little bit different. There’s also private and public. But the struggles are very similar. The issues are very similar.

“We really are enjoying it. And we appreciate the opportunity to be able to sit the Irish exams and come into a community and be recognised the way we were also in South Africa.”

They see Ireland now as their home and have started to explore the possibility with Dr Madden of taking over the Abbeyleix practice whenever he eventually decides to retire.